Why you should care

Bedroom Boredom

EUGENE, SIR: How do I tone down my intrinsic talent for completing my partner’s desires when it is leading to personal boredom? Even foursomes have become mundane. What am I searching for? Is there a pill I could take, or must I divorce continually? — Wheels

Dear 24-Hour Party Person: Sensation is an absolute curse. Absolutely. Because if 10 seems really cool, the human mind can’t help but guess that 20 will be even better. Or, like they used to say in the old days, “if one is not enough, then 1,000 is not too many.” So we continuously chase a high that spirals upward, the repercussions of which we can see all around us. Today’s music video is yesterday’s porno, and somewhere someone is enjoying poop-eating videos: because.

The trickle-down effects of how this ties into our brain chemistry has a lot to do with dopamine and pleasure receptors and a bunch of medical stuff on which I’m the last person you want to take advice from; however, I can help with the philosophical underpinnings of why boredom is dangerous.

First off: Bored guys leave the cave. Guys who leave the cave get eaten by lions. Guys who stay in the cave? Make great cave paintings that we enjoy to this day. Guys who leave the cave are cautionary tales.

Secondly, boredom is really your problem and not an indication that the people around you are less than interesting, although they might be; it’s that you’re less capable of being interested in what’s going on around you. Which means you lied to yourself when you hooked up with them, or you’re lying to yourself now. Why would you do that? Possibly to justify doing whatever it is you really want to do anyway.

My suggestion? Make a friend of boredom. Divorce is necessary if hostile toxicity is the rule of the day, but boredom? Much more about you and how willing you are to change your mind. Of course, it’s easier to get bored with someone else than it is to realize that you are boring, but I just can’t stand the stink of self-deception — and this, my friend, would be that.

What Sister Ray Said

EUGENE, SIR: Every time I’m with a woman, before I come I get suicidally depressed and lose my erection. I’ve never been able to come on a girlfriend. Frankly, it’s kinda depressing. — Zuk!

Dear Come Rain or Shine: I’m unsure of whether you mean “on” or “with,” but based on your first sentence, let’s assume you’re meaning “with.” With suicides they say, and I am in general agreement, that while there might be a trigger event, there is never any one reason why people commit suicide. So there’s probably never any one reason you’re getting suicidally depressed before orgasming outside of this copious field of play: your head.

While it could be a resistance to the party ending, it could just as easily be the fact that the church or your early-life experience has altered your perspective enough so the whole enterprise is fraught with some admixture of guilt, regret, shame and sadness. To which I’d say: easy. It’s not like screwing is even remotely like going to a poetry reading, even though I have experienced deep feelings of guilt, regret, shame and sadness.

Of course, in this closed circle of struggle, the fact that it all serves a narrative of you as miserable leads me to believe that you’ve somehow eroticized misery. Which, if you think about it, is pretty friggin’ cool — most are miserable while enduring misery, but you have somehow made it sexy. Like Morrissey without all of that warbling.

And of course, denying yourself an orgasm completes the collision of quasi-crazy since the purity of no-release is retained, and the only person really put out by this might be your girlfriends, who will then begin struggling with their own sense of adequacy. Unkind, but if they stay, then in all likelihood they share your kink and all is cool.

The most revealing tell that says I’m right: Your question contains no question mark. At all.

Tip Your Server

EUGENE, SIR: I have some sexual problems that I won’t go into here, but I’ve been working them out on my own and think I am ready to try to have sex again with an actual man. But I don’t want this to be a man I know. Are male escorts cool, reliable and safe? How much should I pay? Am I missing anything else that I need to know? — A.M.

Dear Looking for Mr. Goodbar: Like any other profession, there’s no blanket rule covering male escorts, or, like we in the profession like to call them, “male ho’s.” Due diligence is what you should do, and probably The Eros Guide is where you should do it. Email back and forth; feel out the vibe. Condoms are a given. Test results for a double measure of safety.

Pay? If there was ever a case of getting what you pay for, this would probably be it. Less than $200? Expect anything. More than $400? You’ve got yourself a pro. Set out ground rules prior to, and you pick the locale.

And is there anything else you’ve missed? Yes. Don’t get too attached. Because if he’s any good? Oh, you will.